


Impropriety

by somehowunbroken



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-18
Updated: 2011-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-21 07:30:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/222504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“But there’s things that are less than proper, and then there are those that are improper,” John argues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impropriety

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karlamartinova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karlamartinova/gifts).



> For karlamartinova, who won me in the qldfloodauction and asked for Druitt/Watson, the beginnings of their relationship, before they met Helen. This is the first time I've written either man, so I'm really, really hoping it came out how you wanted it!

He’s tall, lanky, and he moves with the most awkward sort of grace that James has even seen in a man, as if his limbs are wings that he has yet to learn to control. His hair flops into his eyes a bit, as if he’s only stopped in on his way to the barber’s and shan’t be staying long, though James has the feeling that he isn’t about to get it cut.

The man is making his way across the green, fiddling with his necktie as he consults a pocket watch. He squints at it and picks up his pace a bit, and the last sight James has of him is as he disappears into a doorway.

He seems a strange sort of fellow. James makes a note to watch out for him before attending to his studies with renewed fervor.

-0-

The man appears three minutes earlier the next day, and seems in much less of a hurry. He’s wearing exactly the same brown suit that he’d worn yesterday, with a few extra wrinkles in the well-worn fabric. He still moves with that strange sort of grace, moving fluidly through space when his movements should look jerky, and James finds himself somewhat fascinated by this man, this stranger.

-0-

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you,” the man says as he sits on the other side of the table James is occupying in the common room. “Every day for a week, you’ve been at that window.” He points to the study that James has been using, second story, third window.

“Indeed,” James agrees. There’s no point in lying to the fellow. “You have a curious air about you, my friend.”

The man smiles and shakes his head a bit, as if to dislodge a troublesome thought. “I’ve heard that before,” he says, and then they sit in silence for a few minutes, until the man simply gets up and leaves.

And so James Watson meets John Druitt.

-0-

They become friends, of a sort. James is a student of anatomical and biological sciences; John is in the college of mathematics, studying patterns of numbers that James can appreciate if not quite understand. Their paths cross only outside of the classroom, mostly when John makes his way into the common room where they had first met, or later when he begins to drop unannounced into the study that James likes to use. They speak of things, as friends do, of home and family and interests, and though they have no mutual acquaintances to speak of and precious little in common, they enjoy each other’s company well enough.

John is temperamental and moody at the best of times, and this is hardly what James would call the best of times. He can’t even be certain what it’s all about, just that one of the men in his anatomical sciences lecture had stopped in the common room and told him that Druitt was causing a scene in one of the taverns, and they’re friends enough that James pulls on his gloves and heads into the night to see if he can’t figure what’s the matter.

John has clearly been at the ale for some time now, if the tint of his cheeks is any indication. The looks that the barkeep sends him as he sits in the seat next to John’s and the way John’s hand is curled around his glass, the tight grip of a man who knows he’ll let the glass slip if he isn’t sure to hold on for dear life, add to the assessment.

“Please don’t ask,” John says, and for all he’s apparently consumed, his speech is clear, even if his gaze isn’t quite so.

“All right, then,” James answers, signaling to the barkeep, who brings him a glass of something smooth and amber-colored that tastes like honey and fire as it goes down. “Shall I order another, or are you ready to leave?”

“I’ve nowhere better to be.” John says by way of reply. “Though I suppose you won’t let me have another, either way.”

“I should think not,” James answers. “Though I wouldn’t object if you said you’d like a refreshing cup of tea.”

John gives a bit of a snorted laugh. “Tea,” he says, almost mockingly. “That’s not how I’d planned on ending the evening, Watson.”

“How did those plans look, then?” James asks pleasantly, but John’s face is a closed book, a mask that hides his thoughts.

“I’m not a polite person,” John says instead, and it doesn’t seem to quite follow the question, but then he has had quite a bit to drink. “I’m not – proper, I think things that aren’t – proper.”

“We all have thoughts that are less than proper,” James tells him levelly, because God knows how that’s the truth. James takes in John’s long frame, legs sprawled beneath the low table, spindly arms supporting his torso, somehow keeping him from lying flat out. He takes another smooth sip from his glass and thinks about what’s indeed not proper, what he thinks about those legs and those arms and that torso, and he swallows as normally as he can.

“But there’s things that are less than proper, and then there are those that are improper,” John argues, the tone of an inebriated man looking for someone to understand his madness. James nods; he doesn’t know what John is telling him, not really, but he can pretend well enough for now.

Except John covers his wrist with one big hand, suddenly, his thumb brushing over the beat of the heart in James’ wrist, light and hesitant. And then, just as suddenly, James can see it, less than proper and improper and the lines that John has drawn around himself, and the thoughts snap through his mind like flashes of lightning, brilliant and startling and dangerous.

He feels as if there’s no chance that his assessment is correct, not about this, not this time, but he’s always been clever, good at figuring things that escape most others; if he’s wrong here, wrong now, it could certainly spell disaster.

But then, James observes, he’s not wrong, and he knows it sharply, with a certainty that leaves no room for doubt.

“Some things are less improper than you would think at first,” he says quietly, below the noise of the tavern, and John’s eyes widen a fraction and his hand weighs more heavily on James’ wrist, a quick press before he lifts it entirely. John signals to the barkeep, who approaches cautiously.

“Tea, please,” John requests, and the corner of James’ mouth tilts up as the barkeep nods and leaves again. John half-turns his body to face James, and he gives a tentative sort of smile, which James returns. He raises his cup when the barkeep sets it in front of him, and the strong smell wafts from the cup as the liquid sloshes inside.

“To impropriety,” John says, and James lifts his glass and knocks it against John’s as he repeats, “To impropriety.”


End file.
